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President Mbeki wants to give legitimacy to poll outcome
International Bar Association (IBA)
March 14, 2005

Just when the volume around South Africa’s controversial strategy of ‘quiet diplomacy’ towards Zimbabwe had been turned down a few notches on the volume gauge, recent comments by President Thabo Mbeki have ratched up the noise level again. Many local and regional Zimbabwe watchers – as well as Zimbabweans themselves – have expressed deep disappointment, even anger, over Mbeki’s statements that he had ‘no reason’ to believe that anyone in Zimbabwe would thwart free and fair parliamentary elections on 31 March. Others don’t necessarily agree with Mbeki’s comments but argue that it might be presumptious to declare the elections unfree and unfair before they have even taken place.

On 2 March Mbeki said that he has ‘no reason to think that anybody in Zimbabwe will act in a way that will militate against elections being free and fair’.’Things like the independent electoral commission, things like access to the public media, things like the absence of violence and intimidation, those matters have been addressed,’ he told reporters. Mbeki said Zimbabwe’s recently passed electoral law was the first to conform with the new guidelines for democratic elections signed by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) in August 2004. Mbeki’s views echoed similar statements made by his foreign affairs minister in February, who said she was satisfied that free and fair elections could take place there, and were reiterated by the deputy minister of foreign affairs on 8 March.

Mbeki’s comments apparently indicate a return to his widely criticised ‘quiet diplomacy’ towards South Africa’s northern neighbour, after a slight shift away from this policy towards the end of last year. His comments also come as a shock to those who have been following developments in Zimbabwe for the past two years, but particularly in the run-up to the parliamentary elections. Many observers have stated categorically that these elections cannot be free and fair given a number of repeatedly publicised factors: the repressive Public Order and Security Act (Posa) which has been used to silence the opposition; the restrictive media laws used to silence independent voices; the use of police and military personnel as election monitors; the understaffed and underresourced Electoral Supervisory Commission which was only recently appointed; the choice of election observers who will only arrive in Zimbabwe two weeks before the elections and who were hand-picked from those countries that have demonstrated a favourable stance towards Zimbabwe; etc.

Arnold Tsunga, the director of Lawyers for Human Rights in Zimbabwe, was quoted as saying that Mbeki's comments ‘disregard the suffering of ordinary Zimbabweans in the face of a dictatorship’ and ‘seriously discredit the leadership of Thabo Mbeki. It is deceitful and unworthy of the president of such an important country on the African continent,’ Tsunga told a South African newspaper. His views were shared by civil society groups and the main opposition party in South Africa.

Many Zimbabweans voiced their sense of betrayal and frustration following Mbeki’s comments. ‘Zimbabweans have become increasingly exasperated with Mbeki's inability to act as a bona fide mediator,’ Tsunga said. The same South African newspaper quoted Lovemore Madhuku, head of the Zimbabwean umbrella organisation the National Constitutional Assembly. He said Zimbabweans believe Mbeki has always wanted to give legitimacy to Mugabe and his government. ‘He wants to assure that Mugabe gets an electoral victory that is seen as legitimate in the eyes of the world to end the Zimbabwe crisis.’

While few would disagree that Mbeki very much would like to see an end to the Zimbabwean crisis which has dogged his administration for more than four years, some observers interpret Mbeki’s comments in a different light. Ibrahim Fakir of the Centre for Policy Studies in Johannesburg, one of several civil society organisations which is part of the Zimbabwe Solidarity Network, said‚’while Mbeki’s statements are a continuation of his strategy of quiet diplomacy they may also be seen as ‘a quiet expression of hope and a quiet signal to the Zimbabwean authorities’. The president may be signalling to the Zimbabwean government, ‘I am risking my neck saying this (and) crossing my fingers hoping that you will make sure the elections are free and fair’.

Eddie Makue, deputy general secretary of the South African Council of Churches (SACC), also believes it would be ‘pre-emptive to make pronouncements on the freeness and fairness of an election that hasn’t happened’. Like Mbeki and the SACC’s counterpart in Zimbabwe, the Zimbabwe Council of Churches, Makue says the SACC wants to see a dialogue between Zanu-PF and the opposition and encourages the promotion of ‘a climate of peace’ in Zimbabwe. The SACC sees the decline in the levels of pre-election violence (compared to 2000 and 2002) and the appointment of ‘credible people’ to the Electoral Supervisory Commission as positive signs. The SACC is, however, concerned by the narrowing of democratic space as exemplified by the state control of the public broadcaster and the treatment of workers in Zimbabwe generally and the delegations of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) specifically. Two Cosatu delegations were expelled from Zimbabwe recently.

The South African National Editors‘ Forum (Sanef) is another body apparently unhappy with its government’s ‘quiet diplomacy’. Sanef issued a statement on 8 March criticising the South African government for not having ‘given due prominence to the importance of Zimbabwe lifting its media restrictions as a precondition for the polls’. Sanef would like the South African government to be more vocal in condemning the harassment of Zimbabwean and foreign journalists and the closing down of independent newspapers. ‘These actions do not bode well for free and fair parliamentary elections at the end of March. Unfettered media are essential for the free flow of information, the exchange of ideas and for voters to formulate opinions on which to base their ballot decision,’ the statement read.

In an article by Greg Mills, the director of the South African Institute for International Affairs in Johannesburg and Dianne Games, director of Africa@Work, the writers argue that ‘the short-term future of Zimbabwe depends on whether the March 31 poll is declared free and fair — not necessarily by the international community, which does not seem to have the power to change events in Zimbabwe much, but by African countries, many of which have provided a bulwark against change there’. Whether South Africa is part of this bulwark or not and whatever its intentions, the South African government’s comments illustrate an ‘assessment (that) ignores the overall worsening of the political and economic environment inside Zimbabwe. Any concessions Mugabe has made have been overshadowed by the tightening of laws governing elections, the role of civil society and the media.’ In this context of on-going repression, fear and economic hardship, the question may well be asked: What price quiet diplomacy?

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